


Ambiguous

by DontSnitch



Category: Sarah Z Extended Universe, Supernatural
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alpha/Omega, DeanCas - Freeform, Destiel - Freeform, Domestic, Gen, I'm sorry I published this but it needed to live OUTSIDE of my head, Kidnapping, Liberal lawboy king sam winchester, M/M, Mpreg, New Parents, Novelist Cas, Omega Castiel/Alpha Dean Winchester, Omegaverse, Politics, Pregnant Cas, Sabriel - Freeform, Supernatural - Freeform, Tags to be added, gaslight gatekeep girlboss, sigh, this is so bad oh my god this is so awful
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-24
Updated: 2021-03-16
Packaged: 2021-03-17 02:33:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 10,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28966893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DontSnitch/pseuds/DontSnitch
Summary: Cutthroat pop-culture Journalist Sarah Zee's favorite topic: The personal life of famous adult romance novelist Castiel Winchester. Castiel, however, is less thrilled about Sarah's articles. They're based on speculation, spread misinformation, and frankly? They're stressing him out. It's the last thing he needs while he's in the final stretch of his pregnancy and he'll be damned if he's not going to do something about it.But the further Castiel digs the more of his past is uncovered. And there are more people out there who want to hurt him--and his family-- in worse ways than silly gossip columns.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester, Gabriel/Sam Winchester
Comments: 17
Kudos: 30





	1. Ambiguous Beginning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cutthroat pop-culture Journalist Sarah Zee's favorite topic: The personal life of famous adult romance novelist Castiel Winchester. Castiel, however, is less thrilled about Sarah's articles. They're based on speculation, spread misinformation, and frankly? They're stressing him out. It's the last thing he needs while he's in the final stretch of his pregnancy and he'll be damned if he's not going to do something about it.

Sarah’s nose crinkled with satisfaction as she clicked the final ‘post’ button on her newest YouTube commentary video. It was hard being an outspoken Beta in a world of Alphas, but  _ somebody  _ had to do it. She kicked her feet up on her desk, crossed her arms and waited for the views, comments, and likes to start rolling in.

*** 

Castiel Winchester, prolific omega romance author, groaned audibly when he opened his twitter. His notifications were through the roof and it hadn’t taken his  phd in literary analysis to figure out why: She was at it again.

“Dean!” He yelled for his Alpha husband as he stormed into the kitchen like a hurricane. “She’s  gone and done it now, look!!”

Dean blinked rapidly at the phone shoved into his face. Sarah Zee’s latest  exposE video was all over his newsfeed. He sighed warily turning back to the scrambled eggs and steak he was frying up for their breakfast. (dean cooked but only if red meat was involved)

“I know journalists are Like That, but can’t she find other stories? We’re not even that interesting.”

“ _ Journalist  _ is being generous, Dean.” He scrolled furiously through his phone. Charlie had  dmed him about it at 3 am when it dropped but Cas hadn’t been awake to see it, he and Dean had taken to an earlier bedtime ever since his 2 nd trimester.

“This has to be her third video on us this wee!” His hand rested habitually against his swollen stomach, almost like a self-soothing mechanism.

“Sunshine, the doctor said that stress is bad for the pups,” he scolded. “We don’t need you on bedrest again.”

He shoved the phone into his pocket and tucked a fancy cloth napkin into his collar when Dean placed his plate in front of him (steak  xxtra rare—the pregnancy was making him crave raw meat and this was as close as Dean would let him get.)

“Maybe I could relax if she took our cease and desist letters seriously.” 

Dean tucked into his steak. “Technically what she’s doing is under fair use copyright laws.”

“It’s slander!” He yelled, stubbled chubby cheeks flushed with rage. “I’ve spent my whole life dealing with  omegaphobic bullshit, working for everything I’ve gotten and fighting tooth and nail to be respected as omega just for her to decide I don’t know I’m oppressing myself by settling down and having pups of my own with my Alpha!”

“I know, sweetie.”

“She’s worse than Sam with his holier than thou bullshit. I know the world I live in, I don’t need them to speak over me!”

Dean winced. “Sam has been better lately ever since he met Gabe.”

Cas rolled his eyes. “I know. Of course it took him getting his knot stuck in an omega before he actually decided to listen to one of us.”

Cas sipped his water huffily. “I don’t know why you’re not more upset. She insinuates you collar me and I have to wear turtlenecks to hide it.”

Dean took a measured breath. It was his job to make sure his mate (and their pups) were safe and stable—that meant staying calm even when he was Going Thru It. If he gave in they might as well skip the doctors visit and confine Cas to the couch right now immediately this instant.

“Well I don’t. I know that, you know that, and everyone who knows us knows that.”

Cas hung his head, buried his hands in his hair, utterly defeated. “I don’t want people thinking I'm like... Some _tradwife_ or something just because I write submissive omega romance novels and started a family with an Alpha.”

Dean reached over, laid a comforting hand on his mate’s thigh. “it’s your choice. It’s your life. Who cares if it fits into secondary gender stereyotypes? You’re being true to yourself.”   
Cas covered Dean’s hand with his own and felt it’s comforting warmth.

“Hey,” Dean said, “we’ll be okay. We always are.”

Cas knew in his heart his mate was right. But that didn’t stop his mind from racing, from formulating a devious little plan in his brilliant omega spaghetti brain.


	2. Ambiguous Meetcute

Charlie picked nervously at her nails.   
“I dunno about this, Cas...” 

They were sitting in a little hole in the wall local coffee shop later that same day, sipping decad and plotting over scones. (Decaf because Cas was preganananat and Charlie because even the slightest hint of caffeine set off her anxiety like the fourth of July.) 

“Charlie, my public image is at stake here,” he reminded her. “My career. My family.” 

Charlie whined. “I will do this ONLY because I am the godmother of your pups.” 

Cas grinned. “You will not regret this.” 

She laughed nervously. “Debatable.” 

*** 

Dean tried to visit his brother as much as possible. He’d been taking care of him since they were pups themselves and he was remembering that now more than ever with his own litter on the way, but he knew he and Cas butted heads too much and it wasn’t a fight Dean wanted to pick, not while Cas was pregnant. He was out with Charlie now, though, so Dean could sneak off. 

Sam’s apartment reeked of chocolate and caramel. Sam looked exhausted when he opened the door. 

“Gabe here?” Dean asked, already knowing the answer. 

“Heyyo!!” Gabriel’s singsong voice came from the kitchen. The omega followed shortly after, ‘kiss the cook’ apron and tray of brownies included. He was short but his personality filled up the room. Dean had to admit he loved the guy, he was a great influence. 

He took a seat in the den and Sam ushered his brother in. “Did you turn off the oven?” he asked his boyfriend. 

Gabriel looked at him sweetly, dunking a brownie into a mug of cold milk. “No, I want the house to burn down and take us both with it.” 

Dean didn’t bother trying to stifle his laugh. Sam always said he loved spit-fire omegas, well, he’d certainly gotten himself one. 

“Have a brownie, Dean,” Sam said. 

“Yeah, we also have cookies in the kitchen,” Gabe chimed in. “My suppressants keep my heats away but the cravings still kick my ass.” 

Sam stiffened at his boyfriend so openly talking about his suppressants and Dean was reminded of why his mate and his brother clashed so much. Sam was... well his idea of omega liberation was different than what Cas’ was. It was stifled by an Alpha’s worldview and there were things Sam just couldn’t get through his waffle alpha brain. But Gabe was getting through to him. Helping him adjust to openly talking about normal parts of his heat cycle was just another part of making Sam understand that you didn’t need to treat Omegas like Alphas for society to be equal. 

“I wish Cas craved sweets—I caught him eyeing up the raw beef other night when I was grilling burgers.” 

Gabe laughed. “You should let him! My Dad ate raw meat when he was pregnant with me and I turned out fine. Said it gave me a stronger immune system.” He rolled his eyes. “I don’t know if I believe him but, well, my mom never argued.” 

Dean nodded, considering it. Instincts were there for a reason, probably, so maybe the cravings weren’t the worst thing to give in to all things considered. 

“How is Castiel?” Sam asked. 

“Oh, he’s, well he’s still mostly on the couch. Not feeling too great for visitors but he wanted me gone so he could have the time to work on his next book today.” Cas may have had open disdain for Sam, but Sam was the only one who couldn’t see it. They’d been together for almost a decade and Dean was Not going to break the news that the reason they only invited Sam over on holidays was because Cas wanted to choke him every time he opened his mouth. 

Sam nodded. “He’s always been so focused on his work. He’s really going to be an amazing working dad.” 

Dean winced. “Actually... Well, Cas is going to take a few years off.” 

Sam’s eyes went wide. “But he loves his job...” 

Dean shrugged. “He has enough saved up for paternity leave. Plus what I make. We’ll be fine.” 

“It’s great you guys can really be there the pups first couple of years,” Gabriel said. 

Sam immediately let his shoulders slump, his posture loosen, and shut his mouth for the first time since his first yip. He actually looked interested in Gabe’s opinion which was...god Dean loved this dude. If this was the effect he had on Sammy after six months imagine how the rest of their lives would go if they mated. Maybe Cas would even invite them to his tupperware parties. 

If Gabriel noticed Sam shut up especially fast, he didn’t show it. “I don’t know if I want pups, but if I ever had them I’d want to stay with them.” 

“You’d be great at it,” Sam said. 

Suddenly the room felt too constricted, Dean felt like he was interrupting something personal. 

“I should get back to Cas,” he said, standing. 

“Take him some brownies,” Sam said, pushing a plate of them into his hands. “Oh, and tell him I can’t wait to be a godfather.” 

Dean smiled awkwardly. Sam didn’t notice the tension behind it, he was all smiles as Dean left and headed back to the apartment. He had a feeling that after the pups were born it was going to get harder and harder to keep Sam from realizing Cas wanted to claw out his guts every time he walked in the room. 

But that was a problem for future Dean. Current Dean had brownies to eat and a roast in the crock pot at home waiting for him. 

*** 

Sarah Zee typed at her laptop in the Starbucks, happy for the crowd of people to watch and for the steady flow of pink drinks supplied to her table every half hour. She was like, a local celebrity, so the owner had offered her free drinks to give him good reviews on Instagram. It was a pretty good deal, even if she hated pink drinks and dehydrated fruit. 

Their was a flounce of wool on the bench across from her in the booth. She look up from her laptop to see a frazzled redhead, bundled up in a knit sweater, pompom hat and scarf staring back at her. Her nose and cheeks were red from the newly December weather and Sarah couldn’t help but notice how well the color complimented her hair. 

“Is it okay if I sit here?” the woman asked. 

Sarah nodded. “Sure. There are five open tables but sure whatever.” 

The woman extended a single fingerless gloved hand. “My name is Charlie.”   



	3. Ambiguous Behemoth

Cas tip tapped away at his keyboard in the dim light of the setting sun through their bedroom window. He was writing domesticity again, his favorite little trope. He’d longed for it so much when he was younger, yearned to be cared for and cherished the way he deserved, fiction had been his only outlet to express that yearning. Now he was an adult, still chasing the high he got from it but now also living it every day with his mate. He never could have guessed he’d get this lucky. Now it was all in jeopardy.

He clicked away from his word processor and logged back into YouTube. He’d deleted the account he’d made to share his personal vlogs of himself and Dean cooking and going about their daily lives and now only had his professional one with his book interviews up. He wished he could delete that one, too, but his editor would have his ass if he took away such valuable marketing. That’s what they saw the whole Sarah Z situation as, marketing. All publicity was good publicity to Dick Roman’s publishing house and like it or not Cas was stuck with him at least until the end of his period romance series.

Her latest video wasn’t exactly new. It was a lot of the same things she’d been saying for weeks with new pictures and new out of context anecdotes from his past interviews. She’d stitched together a narrative that Castiel was...well. Kind of fucking awful, to say the least. That he thought omegas belonged in the kitchen, that Alpha’s were the ones who should make all the decisions in a relationship. Real backwoods stuff but that’s not what bothered him—he'd been fighting that image his whole life. It didn’t phase him. The insinuations about Dean were what bothered him.

That Cas had mentioned earlier in his career, maybe 15 years ago now, that he never wanted pups and how that all changed when Dean Winchester came into the picture. After almost a decade into a healthy, stable  mateship and marriage Cas had warmed to the idea of expanding their family and all because he was a private person it was all getting blown out of proportion.

But Cas’ name in her videos brought in views. Her first video was probably made out of genuine concern for him, however misplaced. That had been fine. He could live with that. But ever since then they’d gotten even more outlandish and more awful, insinuating his private life was hiding dark secrets and torrid waters frigid with neglect and abuse. Ever since then the comments of all of his social media had been bombarded with inquiries about his wellbeing—those were sweet. But then there were the accusations leveled against Dean. Those were most decidedly Not sweet. Some of the fans of her videos had even started a rumor that he had been hiding messages for help in his books ever since he and Dean got together. It was enough to make him want to stop publishing altogether, but, again, Dick Roman didn’t actually give a dick about what his authors wanted.

This would all go away soon, though. Sarah may have ignored his emails and his lawyers cease and desist letters, but he had more tricks up his sleeve than most. He wasn’t one to back down from a challenge and he was not going to be pushed around. He had a plan and it was in action now. Castiel was  a physical and sexual behemoth. A beautiful tempest. He was not shy. He was not afraid to hug you with his whole body. He was not a virgin. He was not made of porcelain. He could and would be rough and handsy. And he, sure as shit, is not going to be submissive to any Sarah Zee.


	4. Ambiguous Roommates

Charlie was going to freak. The fuck. Out. 

Cas was always pulling shit like this; he was always getting her to commit to stunts she had absolutely no interest in or ability to pull off. It was how she lost her virginity, it was how she crashed her first car, it was how she crashed a  mo -ped into a gelato stand when they were on vacation in Italy last summer. Now she could add it to her list that his  scheming was how she ended up in Sarah Zee’s apartment with her two weirdo roommates Diane and Adam.

They were so fucking creepy.

Apparently Adam had been a  vfx guy for the last movie adaption of one of Cassie’s books  _ “Ghostly Heat”  _ and had some. Interesting opinions about it.

“Listen, yeah Jebidiah and Andreas were absolutely in love,” he told her. “One hundred percent. New universes are created when they kiss.”

Charlie nodded, gripping her mug of lukewarm tea like it was her only lifeline and hoping neither of them noticed her discomfort.

“But they’re straight.”

“Excuse me?”

Diane nodded. “Jeb and Andreas are straight.”

Charlie made an effort to close her mouth which had fallen open. “I think. Um. No I think they’re both queer, actually. Because they’re both. Y’know. They’re both men and they’re in love with each other.”

Adam scoffed. “That doesn’t make them gay.”

Diane nodded again, this time with a heavy sigh. “That  fugly overlord and his crazy minions make everything so gross between them.”

“Wait, who’s the overlord?” Charlie asked.

Diane rolled her eyes. “James Novak. Or  _ Castiel  _ Novak, if he’s not hiding behind his little pen name for once.” 

_ Winchester _ , Charlie corrected her mentally. He and Dean had been married for years, since before ‘Ghostly Heat’ was even a draft. But she didn’t say it  outloud because holy fuck these people were actually insane. They were off the shits. Bonkers. Fucking nutso man, she  _ had  _ to get out of here before one of them recognized her from the background of one of Cassie’s Insta posts from before he deleted the account when the Z videos started coming out. 

“I mean, isn’t it weird to you?” Diane asked her. “Like. Why not just use his real first name? If he’s going to write gay romance he should use a name that’s a little more gay than ‘James.’ That’s not gay at all. His real name, ‘Castiel’, though? Super gay. It’d make him so much more desirable on the market, y’know?”

Charlie nodded at the gibberish coming out of her mouth. 

“ Have you ever wondered why Castiel chose such a boring fake name? Not only is the name fake but from a mainstream American standpoint, the name is straight-passing. Castiel is a scam artist. If he can leech from any community, he will do it. From his spectacle of a wedding, to his traditional Alpha/Omega marriage, to his straight-passing fake name, it is an attempt to tap into the leftwing romance community.”

Adam looked so proud of his wife. She continued. 

“Castiel's entire life seems very Straight-friendly, unless your eyes are wide open and you realize, that he isn't. The man uses large groups of people for his own benefit and monetary gain. It is why honest Republican people don't like him. They see right through his lies. The Right-Wing group that supports him are young and not world wise. They are either millennial or Gen Z. The people who are his own age, who are smart enough not to get information from social media, who are not militant like the entitled snowflakes you get today, don't get swindled by this man. Castiel's fanbase is Republican and young.”

Sarah waltzed back into the room with her tea in an adorable pink mug that had: ‘Respect Women Juice’ printed on it. Charlie saw her opportunity and snatched it.

“Oh my god!! I love that mug, girlboss, where’d you get it?”

Sarah genuinely smiled. “It’s my merch. I have a YouTube Channel, actually.”

Finally, some progress. “Really? That’s  _ so  _ cool, dude. What kind of videos do you make?”

Sarah’s eyes sparkled. “Well...”

*** 

Castiel’s phone started blaring  _ 'We’re off to see the wizard’  _ and despite his strict no-distractions-during-family-dinner rule he answered. Charlie sounded tired. Alive, but tired, and slightly more worried than usual.

“Cassie?”

Dean gave him a questioning look across the table (over the roast he’d been cooking all day) and Cas mouthed  _ 'Charlie.’  _ as a response.

“Yeah?” he said. “What’s up, what did you find out?”

She sighed, long and hard. “You’re never going to believe this, Cas.”

“Try me.”

“I have to tell you in person.”

There was a knock at the door. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am not affiliated with Miss Sarah Z but since I mentioned her merch here I will supply a link to her online store for anyone who wants the 'Tea is gay' shirt or the 'Respect Women Juice' mug.
> 
> Link: https://store.nebula.app/collections/sarah-z
> 
> Oh also for legal reasons my original character Diane Williams is not based on any one person living or dead and any likeness that may be found is completely coincidental.


	5. Ambiguous Herring

Charlie’s face was red from the cold walk over and she  barreled into the house. “I cannot  _ believe _ you got me into this bullshit, Cas!” She strode right past him and sat herself down at the table, head in her hands. 

Dean smiled despite having had his nice dinner disrupted for more schemes. He was trying to be normal, but god, it was hard. “Hey, Charlie.”

She didn’t even look up. “I blame  _ you _ for this.” 

His shoulders slumped. He’d been thrown curveballs all day and he wasn’t sure if he was equipped to handle whatever she was about to say. “How did  _ I _ do this?” He backtracked. “No, better yet,  _ what _ did I do?”

She pulled her hair at the roots and if she were any more stressed it would have been coming out in clumps. “You introduced me to Cas when he was still a Whitehouse intern and now he’s the one who made me flirt with some, some  _ rogue _ journalist.”

Cas slid across the linoleum in his socks, one hand on his heavy tummy. “Yeah and how did that go, by the way?”

She shrugged and did a little head wobble. “It was touch and go. She was fine; she’s literally just a person. Like just some guy. She’s surprisingly normal—and her roommates are quite decidedly  _ abnormal. _ ”

“The roommates mean  _ nothing _ to me,” Cas said. “Tell me about the snake.”

Charlie grabbed a baked potato from the middle of the table with her gloved hands and just bit right into it. Dean threw up his hands but the gesture of distress was ignored.

“She’s a puppet.”

_ “What?” _

“She’s a puppet!” Charlie screeched with a mouth full of potato. “She’s being paid to write gossip articles about you!”

Cas had to sit down. “By who?”

“She didn’t say. She only told me if the real story got out she would have to go into hiding or she’d be dead in under a week.”

A chill went up Cas’ spine. Sarah Zed, the woman who had all the power, was scared? This was bad.

Who the Hell were they dealing with?

***

Sam got a call from his brother in the middle of Jeopardy, which was  _ so _ not cool. Gabe was dozing off in his lap and Sam stayed carding his fingers through his hair when he answered.

“Everything alright?” Sam asked. “My  godpups aren’t coming early, right?” Just to make sure.

“No.”

Sam was tempted to hang up.

“I need a favor.”

Sam rolled his eyes and Gabe pinched him having heard Dean’s words from the speaker. ’ _ Be nice.’  _ he mouthed.

“Yeah, dude, what’s up?”

“There’s this journalist who’s been writing major B.S. about Cas,” Dean explained.

“Weird flex but okay.”

“Well, we just found out she’s on somebody’s payroll.”

“Who’s?” Gabe asked, not able to help himself.

Sam saved himself the trouble and put the call on speaker. 

“That’s where Sam comes in,” Dean said. 

Annnnd there it was.

“Think you could pull some fancy legal strings and figure out who’s telling her to write this shit?”

“You still have no idea what lawyers actually do, do you?”

“Not a one.”

Sam sighed. “Yeah, sure, I’ll see what I can do. Fax me her info and I’ll get started tomorrow”

“Thank you, Sammy, I owe you one.”

“Don’t sweat it. I’ll let you know when I get some info--”

“--Oh!! Final Jeopardy!!” Gabe exclaimed.

**_ click. _ **

_ ”First introduced as ‘Fairy Floss’ when and where was cotton candy sold to the public?”  _ Alex Trebek asked.

Sam grinned. “World’s Fair, 1904,” he answered.

“It is  _ so _ hot you know that; you have no idea how hot you are right now.”

Sam caught his boyfriend’s lips in a kiss and was met with the usual fever Gabe got when he answered candy trivia correctly. It crossed his mind to send Alex Trebek a thank you card for everything he’d done for Sam’s sex life.

***

Back at home, Dean googled how to send a fax.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rest In Peace Alex, you were the best of us. :'(


	6. Ambiguous Intern

The tapping of keys infiltrated Kevin Tran’s every waking moment. His eyes opened in the morning to his mother’s furious pre-work click-clacking responses to emails, he went to work and heard it echo off the transposable walls of his cubicle, he went home and spent time with his girlfriend while she typed up the fanfiction she’d hand written during the day. Sometimes he woke up to his fingers searching for home row. He would never escape the endless monotony of sound.

Mr. Winchester slapped a folder onto his desk as he walked past. “I have a mission for you,” he said. “Check your email for details.”

Kevin stared at his back as his boss walked away and wanted to cry. Or stab him. Or both.

“I’m right here,” he muttered. “I am legitimately right here.  _ Why  _ do you have to email me when we can  _ talk?”  _

But Mr. Winchester was already starting in on his own work for the day and all of Kevin’s fellow interns were entranced by their screens. He dissolved once again into the chorus of clicks and clacks.

*** 

If Cas weren’t pregnant Charlie would have beat him to death with his own advanced copy of his novel. 

“You want me to go back to her apartment and make small-talk with the wonder twins?”

“No!” Cas denied. “I just want you to seduce Sarah  Zedde for info.”

Her mouth hung open. “I will end you.” She shook her head in disbelief. “I will simply have to end your life.”

Cas rolled his eyes. “C’mon, Charles, we’ve all slept with people to get something before.”

_ “No we have not.” _ She pinched the bridge of her nose. “Besides, she’s straight.”

Cas slumped down in his chair at this. “Yeah there’s really no ethical way around that one.”

“You are crazy.”

“Eccentric.”

“Whatever you are, you’ve officially exhausted whatever godmother pull you have over me.” She informed him. “ _ And  _ you owe me a dedication in your next Ghostly Heat book for dealing with Adam and Diane.”

“The roommates?”

“Yes.”

“Were they really that bad?”

_ “Yes.” _

Cas still looked skeptical, so Charlie pulled up Adam’s twitter.

*** 

“Dean, dude, you’re supposed to be on paternity leave.” Garth tapped Dean’s ankle with the side of his boot.

His back flat on the dolly, the undercarriage of an old chevy staring down at him—it was the most peace he’d gotten in a week. And that was  _ before  _ his husband started scheming. He wheeled himself out slowly.

“You have  _ no _ idea what my house is like right now.” He gulped just thinking about it. “Cas is a bitch and I love him. He’s fucking crazy and I love him. But he’s still a crazy bitch.”

He wheeled himself back under the car like that was a satisfying conclusion to their conversation.

Garth nodded. “Good talk, buddy.” 

***

Cas gazed at the screen of Charlie’s phone with the same disgusted/fascinated expression he reserved for heterosexual porn.

“Dangler? Taco?” He asked. “Are you positive this man was a  vfx professional on the set of one of my movies?” Cas asked. “His euphemisms for human genitalia suggest he’s actually in middle school.”

Charlie looked about 12 seconds from entering a dissociative state to escape her memories of the man. “I would rather be bludgeoned to death and left in a bathtub to satisfy the homophobic and misogynistic inclinations of a middle aged white male script writer than have to engage with Adam Williams again.”

Cas had taken her phone and was scrolling thru Adam’s twitter. “Huh. Leave individuals with confusing internal desires alone for long enough and they reinvent the split attraction model.”

“I know! Like, I felt like I should have told him? But then he just kept  _ talking  _ and I was like, maybe I should just hold a pillow over his face instead.”

“Oh he  _ hates  _ me.” Cas giggled. “Should I follow him? I know I only follow former presidents and my secret poetry account but do you think I should follow him?”

Charlie was exhausted. “You wake up every morning and you choose violence.”

Cas pulled out his own phone and followed Adam William’s twitter account.

“Oh, Charlie,” he said with a tut. “Every morning I wake up and choose to form new universes.”


	7. Ambiguous Discovery

Sarah Zee dropped an hour and 37 minute long video dissecting the implications of Castiel’s middle child syndrome and its impact on his psyche only to end the entire spiel with a teaser for a sequel about his religious trauma from his time as a choir boy in the catholic church. Cas was kind of on the edge of his seat waiting for that one—considering he was raised Jewish. 

When he told Dean this his husband took a deep breath and said the words Castiel most feared: 

“I think you should unplug.”

***

When the tapping infiltrated even Kevin’s sound-canceling headphones he was confident in assuming the noise was, in fact, coming from inside his head. His customer service smile trembled as the tears rolled down his cheeks. Someone tapped him on the shoulder and he jumped, shoving his palms into his eyes to wipe away the tears before his boss saw him.

“Mr. Winchester, hey,” he said; his voice was shaky. “What’s poppin’?” 

Mr. Winchester blinked rapidly but still repeated himself: “Any progress on the research project I gave you?”

_ Yeah, the one that has nothing to do with what I was hired for? _ But he could never say that aloud. “Actually, I did make some headway before things got classified.”

Mr. Winchester twitched his nose and made a manly midwestern grunt of confusion. “Classified?”

_ Oh my god he had no idea what he asked me to do for him,  _ Kevin thought.

*** 

Mentally, Cas was prepared to lead Dean on a chase through the entire house so he could keep his phone. Physically, he was lying with swollen feet propped up on a pillow and wearing his paternity bathrobe.

“I am on bedrest,” he said. “And you want to take my phone?”

Dean rolled his eyes. “You’re telling me you’ve become completely reliant on a piece of tech that wasn’t even around for the first three fourths of your life?”

“Yes.”

He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Will you at least stay off of social media?” He pleaded. “I don’t care about your candy crush addiction; I just think you need a break from all the...weird shit.” 

Cas laughed to himself. “Maybe if you kept up with Adam Williams’ twitter liveblogs you’d understand the kind of unhinged dopamine rush I’m dealing with.”

Dean snatched the phone from his husband’s hands and stuffed it into his pocket. “You get this back in 24 hours. No sooner, no later.”

As soon as Dean shut the door of their bedroom Cas got his spare cell from his bedside table.

“He is like a little baby,” he muttered to himself.

*** 

“Classified,” Kevin repeated. “Like inaccessible to me through any legal pathway.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.”

If Kevin had even an inch of job security he would have rolled his eyes.

“Mr. Winchester--”

“Kevin,  _ please  _ just call me Sam.”

That did not feel right. He was not a hippie, his mother did not raise him to be a hippie, and he and Mr. Winchester were not friends. He forced it anyway.

“ _ Sam,”  _ He continued. “I wasn’t able to get any more specific than the innerworkings of D.C.”

“You don’t mean...” 

Kevin nodded gravely. “Sarah  Zedge is being paid off from inside the White House.”


	8. Ambiguous Past

Castiel was a fresh faced 20 year old in Washington and he’d just managed to land his dream job: White House Intern. This was before he finished his first novel; it was before he met Dean; it was before everything that had shaped his life for the last two and a half decades.

It was all so long ago now; he’d left all of that behind him. He’d moved to the mountains and left the political rat-race back in D.C. where it belonged, choosing instead to relish in sexy (sexy) public silence with his husband. 

Not in his worst nightmares could have saw it all coming back to haunt him.


	9. Ambiguous Individual

Charlie was in Cas and Dean’s bed, sandwiched between the two of them like the cream in a queer  oreo .  Quoreo .  Queereo . Oh! Or maybe she was the strawberry in a carton of Neapolitan  ice cream . Or maybe she was just hungry. 

She  yoinked the bowl of popcorn from Dean and rectified that last dilemma. 

“I missed this,” she said. “Things have been pretty nonstop for awhile now and it’s nice to just relax.” She snuggled further under the blankets and relished in the familiarity of the dialogue and soundtrack of ‘The Princess Bride.’

“We want you to hack into the White House mainframe,” Cas said.

***

“Hey,” Gabe said, flicking the door to his boyfriend’s office shut behind him. “Your intern is weeping at his desk.”

Sam tsked. “Yeah, that’s Kevin.”

“Aren’t you.  Y’know . Worried?”

“He’s been crying every day for the last two weeks.” Sam shrugged. “It’s kind of his thing.”

Gabe was white-guy-blinking.jpeg. He almost asked if he was joking but Sam was not that funny. “Okay. So you’re aware that you’re a sociopath, right?”

Sam rolled his eyes. “Did you bring the brownies?” 

“Yes.”

He made grabby hands but Gabe scoffed. “What’re you working on?”

“Without violating confidentiality laws, I am allowed to tell you that I am researching the lore of the stock market.”

He leaned over to kiss Sam on the cheek, well aware this had  _ something  _ to do with Gamestop. “Economics is just astrology for business majors.”

He turned to leave, lunchbox still in hand, and Sam made a manly noise of disgruntled midwestern confusion. “Babe. Brownies?’

Gabe was lethal. “We have sweets at home. Give your intern a raise, you piece of shit.”

He dropped the lunchbox full of brownies into Kevin’s lap and gave him a ‘hang in there’ smile before he made his way out of the building.

*** 

“I deserve financial compensation for dealing with you two.”

Cas shrugged. “We can pay you.”

She flicked his nose. “Damn right you’ll pay me.”

“For the record,” Dean added, “I think this is an awful idea and I think you should refuse.” 

“If you think it’s a bad idea then why did you ask me!”

Dean looked so, so defeated. “This man is going to give birth to triplets because of me. I am in no position to deny him anything. He can have  _ whatever  _ he wants.” He was remembering the phone debacle and how badly he lost that one. “Not that I can stop him, anyway.”

Cas was still rubbing his nose. “Ow.”

She laid in her friends’ king sized bed in an air of tragic anguish. “My  godpups will be evil. They are absorbing the evil energy from the umbilical cords right now, at this very second.” 

Cas grinned. “So you’ll do it? You’ll hack the White House for us?”

If she could have smothered herself with one of their silly cross-stitched pillows she would have. 

“Of course.”

*** 

Gabe swapped his leather jacket for a plain black apron at the backdoor to the kitchen. The room was warm and filled with the smell of cinnamon and gay on gay violence. Why he ever left this place, he’d never know. He  _ was  _ happy he was able to give that poor kid some brownies—hopefully he wasn’t allergic to gluten. 

“How’s the  boyf ?” One of his baker boys, Corbett, asked. 

His Assistant manager,  Samandriel , rolled his eyes. “ _ Boyfriend.  _ Corbett is just incomprehensible to anyone who spends less than nine hours a day on stan twitter.”

Corbett kneaded the dough with a renewed vigor. “You’re old and washed up, Bestie, no need to take that out on me.”

“I am younger than you.”

“And your vibes are fucking rancid!” 

“Oh. My. God.” Gabriel would be bald by the time he was forty if they kept this up. “I am never hiring another gay twenty year old again; I  _ swear  _ you kids are making me homophobic.”

Anna came in from the front brandishing a wooden spoon like a righteous  firey sword. “The walls are thin and if  _ I  _ can hear you then  _ the customers  _ can hear you.” Her words were even more unnerving with her customer service smile still plastered on her lips.

She left just as quickly and Gabe said a silent thank you to the woman who invented lesbians. 

Once again behind the counter, Anna was back to tending the customer who had been in the middle of ordering when she’d had to cut them off to fulfill her official managerial duties of ‘wrangling the twinks.’

“That was a honey and lemon cake with buttercream frosting, right?” She asked.

The individual in the grey  trench coat , oversized sunglasses and a trendy merlot infinity scarf nodded. 

“Any writing on that?” 

They grinned unnervingly. “Oh, yes,” they replied. “I believe congratulations are in order.”


	10. Ambiguous Group Project

Garth and Benny were one of the few normal people left in Dean’s life. Well, except for Bobby and Ellen they were actually the  _ only  _ normal people left in his life. And he was endlessly grateful they didn’t ask too many questions. He was grateful for a lot of things today: His normal, basic employees and their normal, basic  smalltalk ; something to do with his hands and let his mind stay firmly fixed on; the stretches of time in the shop where the conversation lulled to the point of silence save for metal clinking against metal or the wheels of a dolly against the floor. 

Garth, as always, ruined it.

“What does Cas do home alone all day while you’re here?”

_ Annnnnnd _ _ here we go.  _

_ *** _

"Mr. Sam,” Kevin said. “Why are we transporting myself and my laptop with all of our extremely off-course and semi-incriminating research on it to your boyfriend’s bakery?” He asked instead of telling him the raise he’d gotten  _ still  _ wasn’t enough to cover these  shenanigans . 

“Believe it or not,” Sam said and ushered him in the back door, through the kitchen and into a charmingly cluttered little office. “This place has a more secure network  han anything the  lawfirm could even dream of.”

That answered none of Kevin’s questions. He set up his laptop anyway.

Mr. Winchester’s boyfriend slipped into the room and waved. “How’s it  goin ’ so far?” He asked Mr. Winchester.

Kevin perked up instantly. “Hi, Gabe.”

“Hey, kiddo,” he said with a perfectly genuine grin but then  turne and immediately flicked Mr. Winchester on the ear.

“Ow!”

“Why’d you bring him here?” He demanded to know in a harsh whisper. “Do you know how much trouble he could get in if you involve him in this? He’s like nineteen--”

“--I’m twenty-three, Gabe.”

“Of course you are, kiddo.” He turned again. “He’s  _ twenty-three  _ and he has his whole life ahead of him. Do you want him to spend it in prison?” He asked. “Do you know what they do to kids like him in prison?”

“I  dunno ,” Mr. Winchester said. “He’s resourceful.

“Don’t get cheeky with me.”

Kevin cleared his throat. “Um, with all due respect, Mr. Sam, I really don’t have the technical skills to take this any further.”  _ Not for what you’re paying me.  _

Mr. Winchester spoke to him directly for the first time since they got there. “Don’t worry, Kevin,” he said. “You’re just here for the trade off.”

When Kevin was a senior partner at a  lawfirm he was going to be  sooooo cryptic. He felt he deserved it.

***

It wasn’t even a minute later that there was a knock at the door and Sam was letting them in. Charlie felt Cas try not to bristle beside her. He managed to—mostly.

Sam didn’t even notice and embraced his brother-in-law in a large bear hug, careful not to squish Cas’ swollen tummy. Castiel patted his back formally.

“Good to see you, Sammy.”

Even Charlie could see the nickname wasn’t welcome, but Sam zipped his lips anyway and didn’t say shit. He turned his attention on her instead.

“Charlie, this is my associate, Mr. Tran,” he said. Charlie shook the scared kid’s hand.

“You got the deets?” She asked.

He nodded and she tossed him a  flashdrive he fumbled to catch. 

“Just transfer all the info you got onto this bad boy and we’ll be out of your hair,” She said. Then added: “Please and thank you.”

When the deed was done, Sam’s boyfriend took the kid by the arm and before the door closed Charlie was able to hear the words: 

“Have you ever made a five tiered wedding cake?”

***

Dean didn’t answer the question immediately, hoping the Garth would drop it. He was not so lucky. 

“I mean, he’s  gotta be missing you.” Garth continues, “I know I was so clingy with Bess when I was in my third trimester.”

“Oh, you know Cas,” Dean stalled. “He’s independent. And stubborn. And cranky.” Technically none of that was a lie.

Benny, who knew Cas slightly better, didn’t push it. But he didn’t distract Garth, either. The  cajun vampire sidepiece craved chaos in its purest form. And when the chaos added to Dean’s discomfort? Well how-dee and sugar his beignets. Craw his dads. Noodle his catfish. Mardi his gras. Swamp his people. Stir his gumbo. Tilt his silly little beret. New his Orleans. So on and so forth, etcetera, etcetera <3

“ Y’know , you guys should stop by for dinner this weekend.” Garth said. “How does Cas like meatloaf? And I make a mean greened beaned casserole.”

Dean, well aware Cas had no shame and a blunt disposition, knew if they went over for dinner with Garth and his family Cas wouldn’t be able to keep his little spaghetti-brained omega mouth shut about his new illegal project. Garth’s famil was too normal and wholesome to be subjected to that. 

“Actually, Cas is only eating raw meat at the moment.” And for good measure he threw in: “And your wallpaper  agitates his IBS”

***

“So,” Corbett began, leaning over the greased metal table like a tween at  summercamp . “Would you describe yourself as a King, Queen, Countess,  Girlboss ,  malewife ,  maleboss ,  malegirl ,  Girlwife OR WifeBoss?” 

Samandriel swung the rolling pin at Corbett’s head and sent him sprawling on the tiled floor. He spat on him.

“You don’t have to answer that,” he told Kevin.

Kevin started to cry.

***

Only separated by a thin wall, in the other room Charlie worked her magic despite the weeping.

“Do you think you’ll be able to crack it today?” Cas asked.

Charlie bit her lip. “I think I’m  gonna have to work this one a little longer than usual,” she told him. “The firewall is pretty intense.”

“But you  _ can  _ get through?”

She scoffed. “Of course I can.”

Cas was elated. He threw his arms around her and kissed her wetly only the cheek. She wiped it furiously, after.

“Thank you, thank you,  _ thankyou,”  _ he said.

She closed her laptop and plucked the holy grail  flashdrive from it’s port, packing it up in her messenger bag. 

“Yeah, yeah. I wouldn’t even be doing this if—”

“If this weren’t for your  godpups ,” Cas echoed her words sarcastically. 

She nodded smugly but behind them Sam had gone deathly still and white as a sheep. He let out a whimper of manly morbid (balding) cowboy confusion and betrayal.

“ **_ Your  _ ** _ godpups?”  _


	11. Ambiguous Betrayal

Sam sank to the floor with a musty wail that could be heard throughout the block.

Charlie laughed nervously. “Um. Well. I’m going to go back to my house. Where I dwell. To take a break from you insane people. Goodnight.” She tipped an invisible beret and got the hell out of there as quickly as lycanthropically possible.

***

Across town and Winchester’s auto shop the musty sound vibrated at a frequency Dean’s ears were finely attuned to after dealing with his kid brother his whole life. Sammy hadn’t made that noise like that since he’d botched his audition for Gilmore  Gomegas and had to go through with his fallback career in the law field.

“Did a ferret just give birth?” Benny asked.

Dean could  _ not  _ do this today. “Yeah, probably.”

*** 

So now Gabriel had: Two inconsolable weeping messes in his office, a stan twitter socialite passed out in the breakroom, a pre-homicidal  twunk in time-out in the cooler, Anna doing the work of four people during the lunch rush—and this pregnant bitch just.  _ Tapping his fucking foot at him.  _

_ “ _ What the hell did you do this time?” Gabe demanded.

“Me?” Castiel said indignantly. “I never said Sam would be the  wolffather ; it’s not  _ my  _ fault he always assumes these things.”

Gabe grabbed a lollipop, ripped the wrapper off, and stuffed it into his mouth to keep from punching a hole through the wall like a nicotine addicted white boy. “Cut the attitude or I will pop you in the mouth, I swear.”

Castiel rolled his eyes. “I’m pregnant, you ass, as in with  _ child—”  _

Gabe pointed the lollipop at him for emphasis. “Your face  ain’t pregnant, princess.”

Castiel’s foot ceased tapping but his arms stayed crossed. “Fine. What do you want me to do about it?”

*** 

Somewhere in the very depths of the U.S. Capitol schemes were brewing and plans were being set into motion. Behind her desk, her legs crossed and her eyes glinting with mischief, Meg Masters smirked.

*** 

Cas thought the apron, disgusting little green-yellow thing (nowhere near as sleep and slimming as the standard black the rest of the kitchen staff wore) made him look frumpy. When he’d voiced his concerns, Sam’s tragically short and endlessly annoying little boyfriend only rolled his eyes. 

“You’re a whale; everything makes you look frumpy.” 

And just to spite him, Gabriel sat him at a stool behind the front counter to  tak orders and guard the glass cases full of baked confections. 

“Man the front for forty-five minutes max and I’ll be back here to boot your ass out of my shop and back to wherever the hell you came from.”

“I hate you.” 

“Customer. Service. Persona.” Gabriel reminded him.

Cas plastered a huge, fake smile on his face and his eyes remained dead. “I hate you!” He repeated, but this time with all the charm of a door to door vacuum salesman.

Gabe crunched his lollipop. “That’ll do.”

As soon as he was back in the kitchen Cas’ smile dropped and he stuffed a cookie into his face. He was not a ‘whale,’ he was literally manifesting life in his  momb (man womb.) There were three heartbeats and twelve legs in his fucking stomach. He scoffed. As soon as Gabriel  the little trumpet boy carried a litter of triplets as gracefully as Cas had, maybe  _ then  _ he could talk shit.

The bell above the door chimed and Cas was instantly transported back to his first under-the-table job at a subshop. His voice was soothing and sweet, his manners were impeccable, and he was in Hell.

*** 

Kevin was finally all cried out and propped up against his boss. Mr. Winchester’s eyes were red and puffy. He looked like a wet, balding rat. Kevin hated him. Without his sobs to take up his thoughts, the tapping was back.

Click clack.

“I can’t believe they’d do this to me.” His voice was raw and he sounded gutted.

Click clack.

“I don’t know why this is happening to me.”

Click clack.

“Hey,” Kevin said, still too exhausted to extricate himself from the shoulder of the man who’s face handed him stacks of paperwork in his nightmares. “How much does Gabe’s place pay?” He asked.

Sam shrugged. “I don’t know. The shop does pretty well. Like 15 or 16 dollars an hour?”

Holy fucking shit. Holy shit. That was at least five more dollars an hour than he was making at the office. He laughed.

“Oh, I fucking  _ quit.”  _

Mr. Winchester whimpered again. “ _ What?”  _

Kevin hopped off the counter and started his way out, stopping in the doorway of the office to make things clear. 

“I no longer work for you. This is me cashing in my paid vacation and giving my two weeks notice. Don’t expect to see me back in the office.”

“Kevin,” Mr. Winchester pleaded. “Don’t do this.” He stumbled up and reached for him.

“Touch me and I will bite your hand off I swear to god. Do it. Do it ,I fucking dare you, I  _ want  _ you to try it so I can bite off your stupid little hand.”

Mr. Winchester shrunk back, cradled the offending hand to his chest, and shed a single tear. 

Kevin walked out of the office, past the kitchen, grabbed an application from the stack by the pregnant dude by the register, and made his way out of the shop and into the sunshine.

Chirping birds ushered him into the next chapter of his life. 

***

Meg adjusted the maroon scarf around her neck and sipped coffee from her ‘Gaslight, Gatekeep, Girlboss’ mug. One click of the mouse with her perfectly manicured red nail and Sarah Zee’s next slanderous video was bought and paid for. 

“Oh,” she whispered to herself  girlbossishly . “It’s all comin’ together.”


	12. Ambiguous Go-Time

Dean’s entire world was crashing down around him. Admittedly, he’d been thinking that a lot lately—but this time it was true. And what was Cas doing? Oh, Cas was back-reading Adam Williams twitter in bed next to him like it was the Washington  friggen ’ Post. 

“You’re seriously not going to apologize to me?”

Cas’ cerulean orbs looked at him  snarkily over his reading glasses. “Apologize for what?”

Dean threw his hands up, almost knocking over his bedside lamp. “Damnit, Cas!” He shouted. “You told me you’d be nice to Sammy! I wanted to tell him Charlie was the godmother at the right time and now he’s a mess! He won’t even speak to me.”

Cas gestured bitchily to his stomach. “I’m about to pop, Dean,  _ when  _ was the right time?” He asked rhetorically. “Maybe it wasn’t the best way to break the news but he  _ needed  _ to know.” He rolled his eyes and turned his own bedside lamp off, settling in all comfy-like under the covers. “Besides, Goddess forbid we both die and tragically leave the pups orphans it’s not like Sam will never see them. Charlie is one of his best friends, too. And she’s not  _ evil,”  _ he reminded his husband. “If we die the pups will need their Uncle Sam.”

“Then why don’t we just make him the Godfather?”

“If Sam wants to start a little liberal hippie commune with his lawboy salary and rescue a turtle and name it Drydraluxlaloud because of one of his silly bloodfreak dreams then he can mate that little cupcake weasel and knock him up his damn self.” He turned his back to Dean. “Goodnight.”

And as much as Dean wanted to stay mad, Cas did have a point.

*** 

Back in her apartment Charlie was clicking out of the last video she’d yet to watch on Sarah Zee’s channel. Leave it to her to fall in love with a straight girl. Again. And one who her best friends hated. They hated her because she was accepting money to dig up and fabricate tabloid gossip about Castiel—which was valid or whatever. Ugh.

She needed a distraction. Digging her heels in on finding whoever was paying Sarah Zex off was as good a one of any.

*** 

If Gabe managed to get Sam out of bed this morning it would be a miracle. Yesterday was just blow after blow for him and as much as he loved Sam Winchester, the man was simply not equipped to handle that much concentrated agony in the span of a couple hours. Was he a physical behemoth? Yes. A sexual behemoth? Sure. But a behemoth with good or even decent coping  mechanisms ? Not a chance in hell.

“Hey  Samshine ,” Gabe stroked the hair off his forehead and Sam looked up at him miserably. “How  ya feelin’?”

“Bad.”

He sighed. “I figured.”

As much as he wanted to stay with his boyfriend till he felt better, Gabe had a business to run. 

“I have to go,” he said softly. “Do me a favor and try to eat something before I get back?” He asked. “Your backup  hydroflask is in the fridge when you finish the one on the table.”

“ sksksksksksksksksks ,” Sam said sadly.

“ Sksksks ,” Gabe replied and kissed him on the nose. It was going to be a tough day for both of them.

***

Back at home, Kevin was treating himself to a bubble bath and the musical stylings of Billy Joel. He plucked a cucumber from his eye and popped it into his mouth.

“I should buy a harmonica.”

*** 

Dean  _ wanted  _ to stick fast to his goal of at least getting an apology (and maybe one for Sam, too) but when Cas emerged from the bathroom after lunch with a nervous glint in his eye, both hands on his stomach, and looking like he’d poured an entire gallon of  GatoradeTM down the front of his pants. Dean knew there were more pressing matters to attend to.

“Go time?” He asked breathlessly.

Cas nodded, his raspy voice filled with fear and excitement and love. “Go time.”

In their haste rushing to the hospital, Charlie’s frantic calls went unanswered. 


	13. Ambiguous Delivery

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *wearily* oh, it's all coming together.

Cas had been reading all the books he’d been mentally (and physically) prepping himself for this exact moment for months—but none of it,  _ none  _ of it had prepared him for the reality of shooting three tiny, wriggling pups into existence. 24 hours after he waddled into the emergency room he lay sweating on his hospital bed, cradling his little litter of wolf pups to his chest. 

Dean was in a hospital chair pulled right up next to the bed, leaning in with a look of wonder. “ i’ll never get over how cool it is that pups are born in full wolf form.”

“I know,” Cas agreed. “But I can’t believe we won’t get to see their human faces for a whole month.”

Dean reached out to stroke one of their velvet soft ears. “Oh my moon goddess—we  **_ made  _ ** these,” he said. 

Cas almost pointed out that he’d only really collaborated for the first 5 hours but stopped when he saw the lines of tears that had run down his husband’s face. Then he remembered every moment he’d needed support, not just over the last 9 months but for the last decade. Dean had been there every single time. Dean taught him how to love, how to  _ trust.  _ Cas never would have had kids if he hadn’t met Dean, for more reasons than one.

“Yeah,” he said, putting a hand over his husband’s. “Yeah we did.”

*** 

Charlie sat in one end of the waiting room and Sam sat in the other. They’d both been there since yesterday when they got Dean’s call—and Sam hadn’t said a word to her the whole time.

“Dude,” she’d said after catching him in a particularly vicious glare. “C’mon, man. You’ve known me since we were undergrads. We’re  _ friends.”  _

_“Were_ friends,” He clarified. “Before you stole my nieces and nephew from me.”   
“I didn’t even ask to be the godmother!”   
“That makes it worse! You see how that makes it worse, right?”

Charlie threw her hands up and Gabe mouthed an apology to her when Sam wasn’t looking.

A man in study flannel and a roughed up baseball cap walked through the doors of the waiting room looking weary but glad to be there. Then he noticed the thick fog of tense animosity and turned to his son.

“Damnit, Sam,” Bobby said. “You couldn’t help picking a fight today of all days?”

“How do you know it’s my fault?” He whined.

“Because I raised your petty ass,  ya idjit!”

Gabe started fixing his unruly hair and rumpled clothes. No one had told him Sam’s  _ father  _ was going to be there. He stood up to shake his hand despite how shabby he looked—they'd all slept here last night, surely Sam’s Dad wouldn’t hold it against him. 

“Wonderful to meet you, Mr. Singer,” he said. “I’m Gabriel, Sam’s boyfriend.” 

Bobby raised an eyebrow but shook his hand firmly; he assessed him with a once-over and then nodded his approval of Gabe’s first impression.

“Good to meet  ya , Kid,” he said. “How long have you two been together now?”

Crap, Gabe didn’t prep for an interview. “Almost a year now, Sir. I’m sorry I haven’t been able to meet you until now but,” he laughed nervously. “Well, what a nicer reason to meet, huh?”

Sam’s Dad nodded and sat in the middle ground of the  SamVCharlie feud aura. 

“So, Sam,” he said with a deadpan expression and tone. “When were you going to tell me you were in a relationship?”

And just like that, Gabe wasn’t nervous anymore—he was  _ pissed.  _

*** 

“So which is which?” Dean asked. They’d picked out their names months ago but now that the pups were really here it was time to decide who was who. 

Cas already had them lined up on his chest in order of birth. All of them were small enough for Cas to hold cupped in his hands and their little muzzles were scrunched up. They wouldn’t even open their eyes for the first couple of days. 

The first had a reddish brown coloring. “This is Emma,” Cas said. “And this one in the middle,” the pup he referred to had a light blonde coat and her claws were already kneading Cas even if the rest of her siblings were trying to sleep. “This one is Claire.”

Dean nodded and reached out to touch the last pup, the chestnut brown runt who’d come out so much smaller than his sisters. “So this is Jack.”

Cas could have cried. In their own ways, they all already reminded him of Dean. “That’s our son.” 

Dean took him gently in his arms and the little pup yawned before snuggling in closer to his Dad. Dean was filled with pure unimaginable joy.

“Cas,” he said, eyes never leaving his son. “They’re beautiful. I can’t believe they’re ours.”

“They are. They’re ours and they are  _ so  _ loved.”

“We’ll keep them safe,” Dean said. “Nothing bad will ever happen to them.” 

Cas knew it was unrealistic, they couldn’t protect them from  _ everything.  _ Not from scraped knees or broken bones. But when Dean swore something he meant it. Their pups would never have to be alone through anything. So he nodded. 

“They are so loved.”

*** 

“Yeah, Samuel, when did you plan on telling your  _ father  _ about me?” Gabe asked. His voice was sticky sweet but Sam knew that meant he was secretly seething.

“I don’t know.” Sam gulped. “After we were married?”

“ _ That’s  _ how you’re proposing to me?”

“No!” 

“So you  _ don’t  _ want to marry me?!” 

“I didn’t say that!”

Charlie waved. “Hey, Bobby.”

He nodded. “They always like this?”

“Yeah </3.” She sighed.

…

“How did you make that sound with your mouth?”

*** 

A nurse came into the room with a medical trolley cart for the pups. 

“Is something wrong?” Cas asked.

He and Dean both held the pups in their arms closer instinctively, almost curled over them.

The nurse had curly blonde hair, a round face and kind smile. 

“Oh, I doubt it,” she told the nervous new parents. “They look just perfect—”

“They are,” Dean growled defensively.

“Yeah, so they should stay here with us,” Cas agreed.

The nurse tilted her head indulgently, sympathy written on her face.

“We just need to do a couple of tests, check up on their lungs, weigh ‘n measure them from nose to tail,” she told them. “It won’t take more than forty-five minutes. I promise.” She crossed her heart.

Cas blinked for a long while, sighed and nodded. “The sooner we let them go the sooner we get them back.”

The nurse even let Dean place each of them carefully into the trolley (after kissing each of their sweet little noses.)

“Can I go with them, at least?” Dean asked. 

“I’m sorry,” She said, and Dean believed she meant it. “I’m not allowed to let non-staff into the exam room.”

He nodded. “I understand.”

She patted his shoulder reassuringly with her gloved hand and looked back at Cas. “They’ll be back in your arms by the top of the hour,” she promised.

She shut the door behind her, uncrossed her fingers from behind her back and walked calmly down the hallway. She took the staff elevator down two floors and wheeled the newborn litter into the supply closet where she’d stashed her real clothes. She shoved the wig into the diaper bag and unfolded the stroller, taking care tucking each pup into place.

No one questioned the new mother toting the diaper bag and wheeling her litter out the from doors of the hospital.

Once they were loaded into the black Sedan she dialed her boss’ out of state number and put the phone to her ear. 

“Meg?” The voice asked.

“Secretary Clinton,” Meg answered. “The deed is done. On my way to the airstrip with the package now.”

She adjusted her rearview mirror to see the litter better. They really were the most beautiful pups she’d ever seen. It was understandable their fathers didn’t want to let them out of their sight.

What a shame they’d never see them again. 


End file.
